The Sea Rovers

by Rufus Rockwell Wilson

Captain Smith's adventure reminded a brother diver, in whose presence it was told, of a narrow escape of his own. It occurred while he was putting some copper on the bottom of a steamer in dock. "I took some plate down with me," he said, "and worked for a while on one side of the hull, after which I started in to put some plates on the other side. The vessel was about three feet off the bottom, and I crawled underneath, dragging the plates behind me. After I had been at work for an hour or so I noticed that my air was getting short, but when I tried to get under the keel again to be hauled up, I found the steamer on the bottom and squeezing my air-hose between its keel and the ground. The tide was ebbing and the hull had gradually sunk until it was almost aground. I had forgotten all about the tide, and when I pulled the hose it refused to move an inch. If the bottom had been soft it would not have mattered so much, but it was rock, and the hose was gripped like a vise. There was nothing to do but wait; if she fell any lower the air would be entirely shut off and I would have to die. Not till my last hour shall I forget the torture of those few minutes while I waited to see whether it rose or fell. My head felt as though it was bursting, and my nose and ears were bleeding. I took heart, however, when the air began to freshen, for I knew then that the tide had turned, and that the hull was rising. There was plenty of time for me to recover my nerve before it was high enough off the bottom for me to crawl under, but I did not get it back. Instead, I stood there shaking like one stricken with palsy until I could squeeze under the bottom and give the signal to be hauled up. I reached the surface in a half-fainting condition, and was sick for weeks afterward. When I did recover it was with hearing permanently impaired."

Diving in the Great Lakes is attended with even greater perils than those I have just been describing. In Lake Huron, opposite the entrance of Thunder Bay, a large buoy marks the spot where, nearly twenty-five fathoms deep, lies the wreck of a once famous lake vessel, which sank while sixty of its passengers were still in their berths, not one of whom evermore made sign. The steamer took down with it when it sank not only that precious human freight, but $300,000 in gold coin and five hundred tons of copper. The sunken steamer was the Pewabic. Bound down the lakes from Copper Island, then the richest known deposit of pure copper in the world, it collided with the steamer Meteor, bound up the lakes, and sank almost instantly.

Diving apparatus was at that time somewhat crude upon the lakes, and the great depth of water in which the Pewabic went down made it out of the question to attempt to raise it or to recover any of its valuable cargo. Twenty-five years after the wreck the sunken vessel was located by means of grappling irons, and a Toledo diver ventured to go down and inspect it. He was hauled up dead. In spite of his fate, two other divers, tempted by the price offered, went down at different times. Neither survived the venture, and until 1892 nothing further was done toward recovering the wealth lying in the wrecked Pewabic. Then a noted diver, Oliver Peliky by name, who had with apparatus of his own devising done safer work in deeper water than any other diver on the lakes had ever been able to withstand, announced his willingness to go down to the wreck. He was taken to the spot, the wreck was located by grapples and Peliky went down. He was below twenty minutes and then signalled to be drawn up. When he reached the surface he said he had experienced no great inconvenience, had gone into the wreck, and was enthusiastic in his belief that he could do the work that was necessary to recover the cargo. He went down again, and for a quarter of an hour answered every signal. Then he failed to respond. The men on the tender pulled on the life-line. It had plainly caught on some obstruction. The crew, believing that Peliky was dead, backed the steamer. The jerk loosened the life-line. They hauled the diver to the surface. His armor was opened, as if burst by some great force. The diver, of course, was dead. Since then, though handsome inducements have been held out to various divers, no further attempt has been made to recover the treasure that has lain for more than a generation in the Pewabic's hold.

One of the divers with whom I have talked told me that somehow diving took the life out of a man, and that he had never known a diver who did much smiling. "I have an impression myself," he added, "that I shall go down one of these days without coming up again." In truth, before my wanderings among them were ended, I came to the conclusion that divers, as a class, are taciturn, grave, sober-faced men, but I also found that the calling they follow has its humorous as well as its serious side, although too often the humor has a dash of the grewsome to it, as was the case with a diver who went down to work on the steamship Viscaya, sunk in a collision off Barnegat Light. It was a difficult job, so two divers were sent down—one of them to remain on deck in sixty feet of water, to act as second tender to the other diver who went below. The latter had been at work but a few minutes when three jerks came over the life-line. He was so unnerved when hauled up to the deck that he forgot that he was still in sixty feet of water, and signalled to have his helmet removed. When both divers had been hauled to the surface, he said that while he was working through a gangway, he had seen two huge objects coming toward him; and nothing could dissuade him from the belief that he had encountered two submarine ghosts—until the other diver went down and discovered that there was a mirror at the end of the gangway, and that the diver had seen the reflection of his own legs, vastly enlarged, coming toward him.

The veteran from whom I had this story told me also of the amusing mistake made by a diver, who, much against his will, had been sent down to recover a body from a wreck. Some divers have an ineradicable dread of the dead, and never handle them when they can possible avoid it. He was one of this kind, and the water being very thick, he went groping gingerly about in the cabin. After a lengthy search he found a body, and fastening a line around it, gave the signal to haul it up. When he followed and took off his helmet a large hog lay on the deck. He had tied the line around it, thinking it was the body he was looking for. After that he was always called the "pork" diver. His former comrades have likewise many amusing stories to relate of a diver of other days, Tom Brintley by name, who, though a competent man and a good fellow, was a little too fond of stimulants. On one occasion he went down while in his cups, and the men above not knowing his condition, became seriously alarmed when several hours passed by without their receiving any signals from him or any response to those they made to him. Another diver, sent down to look for him, found him lying on his back at the bottom of the ocean, sixty feet below the surface, fast asleep!

The bed of the ocean would seem to most people an exceedingly strange place in which to take a nap, but divers live in a world of their own—a world of which their fellows know little or nothing, yet abounding at every turn with curious, beautiful, and indeed, almost incredible sights. Sometimes, especially in tropical waters, the bottom of the sea is a lovely spectacle, and divers grow enthusiastic when they describe its forests of kelp and seaweed gently waving in the tide, which look like fairyland, in dim light, and the bright-colored fish making them all the more beautiful. Along the coast of the Island of Margueretta, and in many parts of the Caribbean Sea, there are submarine scenes of surpassing beauty. Often the bed of the ocean is as smooth and firm as a house floor, and the water as transparent as crystal, while the white sandy bottom acts as a reflector to the bright sunshine above the surface. In some places there are widespreading pastures of stumpy, scrubby marine vegetation, a growth not unlike seaweed, and of a bluish gray tinge. There are also clumps of fan-shaped fungi, of a spongy consistency, which when dried in the sun are exceedingly beautiful. But the most wonderful growths in these gardens of Neptune are the long kelp tubas, resembling our fresh-water pond-lilies, only of much larger size. Their stems are tough and hollow, and put forth pretty blossoms on the surface, although their roots are in the bed of the ocean, many fathoms below.

In the West Indies and the Spanish Main the water is so clear and transparent that the bottom is visible at a depth of from sixty to a hundred feet below the surface, and the scope of the diver's vision is seldom less than an eighth of a mile. In Northern seas, however, especially in the harbors of towns and cities, the water is so discolored and murky that nothing can be seen at about twenty feet from the surface, a disadvantage which calls for the exercise of the gift of which all divers are most boastful—their delicacy of touch. Indeed, most frequently the diver must do his work under water by means of touch only, and when one considers the varied tasks he is called upon to perform, pipe laying, building, drilling holes in rocks and charging them with dynamite in darkness, looking for treasure, recovering dead bodies and sunken cargoes, or inspecting all parts of a wrecked vessel, buried in water a hundred feet deep, it is not to be wondered at that he should be proud of any special skill in this direction with which nature and practice have favored him. With some, this delicacy of touch becomes in time almost a sixth sense. Diver C. P. Everett, of New York, is one of these. Four or five years ago, he laid a submarine timber foundation of twenty-eight feet long 12 x 12 yellow pine, handling it alone. First, the pieces were weighted to sink; and then Everett went down and weighted them for handling, for without weights they would, of course, have immediately risen to the surface.

Only a strong man can become or, at least, long remain a successful diver. No one is fit for the calling who suffers from headache, neuralgia, deafness, palpitation of the heart, intemperance, or a languid circulation. The pressure of the atmosphere increases the lower one descends, until a point is reached where life could not be maintained. The greatest depth, perhaps, ever reached, was 201 feet, with an atmosphere pressure of 87 pounds to the square inch. A diver named Green worked in 145 feet in Lake Ontario, but he was paralyzed, and never did a day's work afterward. Most divers do not care to work much deeper than 120 feet, and even for 30 or 40 feet, a moderate depth, considerable nerve and practice are requisite. The lower the depth, the more acute the pains felt in the ears and about the eyes, and symptoms of paralysis become more pronounced. An asthmatic man, on the other hand, may be cured by diving, the constant supply of fresh air, and the pressure which drives the blood so rapidly opening up the lungs. Divers as a rule cannot stand close rooms, being so accustomed to a copious supply of fresh air that they must have plenty of it, even when they are above water. In diving, the supply of air is increased according to the depth. At thirty feet below the surface fifteen pounds of air to the square inch is used, at sixty feet thirty pounds, and so on. Still, much depends on the man, and some divers work in eighty feet of water with only forty-five pounds.

In the laying of masonry under the water and other work of the kind, the diving dress is usually replaced by the diving bell. This is a large vessel full of air, but open at the bottom, fresh air being pumped into it by air pumps. It is furnished with seats, and a chain passes through the center, by which weights can be raised or lowered. The diving bell has this advantage over the dress, that several men can work in company; on the other hand, should an accident happen, more lives are involved. Some years ago the chain of a diving bell in use at a pier in Dover, England, got fouled in some way and its occupants found themselves in a most alarming predicament. However, a diver named William Wharlow, donning his suit, descended, crowbar in hand, and after several hours of hard work, succeeded in freeing the chain, when the diving bell was hauled up in safety.

It was stated a little while ago that some divers have an ineradicable dread of the dead; many will not have anything to do with them, when they come upon them by accident they will be unnerved and useless for the rest of the day, and those who make a virtue of necessity, when on a wreck generally insist upon getting the bodies out first. The temperature of the water always tells the diver where to look for bodies in a wreck; if it is cold they will be on the floor or lying in the berths; if warm they rise to the ceiling or against the bottom of the berth above.